DIET and EXERCISE?

Specialist Cancer Doctors are locked into the necessary clinical requirements of treating whatever cancer they are presented with. Surgery, Radiation and Chemotherapy being their weapons of choice.

Pamphlets untidily stuck in racks in cancer hospital waiting rooms, expound the benefits of improving outcomes by concentrating on eating healthily and excercising, to give the body its full potential at combating disease.

Throughout our cancer journey, my wife and I had to do all our own research into the foodstuffs that help and the excercise regimes that are beneficial.

My thoughts are that more proactive work should be done by specialist cancer centres to promote the proven benefits to their patients of both additional weapons in the battle. Clearly some work has been started else the pamphlets would not exist. Surely if there are known advantages from altering ones lifestyle after diagnoses then these should be advocated as strongly as attending the next chemo clinic.

Charles

Dear Charles,

Your post struck a chord with me. I agree with what you say but.... I have this feeling that a pre-disposition (is that how you spell it?) to cancer is something tied into our DNA as well as lifestyle. For this reason I feel that if the medical trade is to become truely proactive that we all must take DNA-profiling on board as part of our modern life.

You might think that this might create an underclass of people whose lives are pre-blighted by the information. All I can say is that prevention is so much better than "cure", that I think it's better to know. Of course, you have to see someone dying in front of you to think like this which is an oximoron (or maybe just a moron!).

I love my wife and don't want her to go. I don't want our kids to get cancer. I don't want friends I know to die from the cancer that they have. Really, I'd do anything to stop this happening.

"Your wife presented with ovarian cancer and we did our best". She did. They did. But it's not good enough. They are REACTIVE. They should be PROACTIVE. They pride themselves on responding, but they should do so much more to stop us getting to that point.

I hope you are well. Everyone here is basically OK. Kim is very ill but we just take each day as it comes. I'm drinking my way through the trauma, which seems to work quite well although I notice that my spelling and grammer have suffered somewhat.

David x (Looks like a kiss, but don't worry. It's a man-hug. Safe to enjoy what ever your sexuality).

Hi Charles, David and Donna
I do also believe there is a predisposition for this disease, in some cases a clear genetic links is seen in others although no direct corrulation but a strong pattern that cannot be debated away by the agrument of 'pure chance'.

Now one would have to live on the far side of the moon to be unaware of cetain life style suggestions for cancer triggers, however, there are significant numbers of patients that do not fall into life style trigger factores to ignore the suggestion of alternative reasons and triggers.

I have decided on this topic to post a few of my gleanings about diet which may or may not be useful but they do suggest someone with their eyes open could well find a simple remedy for cancer in the non too distant future. It must be out there somewhere.

Ovarian cancer... http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,,1756038,00.html

See what you think

Chemo or Ginger?

Antioxidents....berries, fruits and nuts

I think there has to be a healthy balance between blaming the victim (in my family, it's your own fault if you have a cold, so you can imagine their reaction to my husband's cancer!) and offering helpful advice that's not overly strict.

Before my husband went in for bowel cancer surgery, I asked repeatedly for a diet sheet because I knew that I had to plan in advance for his return and buy in groceries for a low-fibre diet. No one I asked had one, so I did loads of research online and sorted it all out in advance - which is lucky, because I finally got a diet sheet on his last day in hospital. Wouldn't have done me much good - I was on 24 hour nursing watch with hubby, and living in a fourth floor flat with no car and the nearest grocery store 3 miles away, I needed that information much earlier.

Once the low-fibre phase passed (didn't take too long), I found myself again asking for nutritional information. I didn't want to go the whole Gerson or Bristol Cancer Centre route, but I wanted my and my husband's diets to be better, both for his cancer and for his general digestive health. All of the doctors said he could eat anything he wanted. In the end we cut out red meat and are trying to follow a more Mediterranean/Asian diet, but not terribly strictly because we have to live our lives also. I found the Maggie Centre (we're lucky to have one) a great source of books on diet and nutrition.

I think that doctors are (quite rightly) scared of advocating very restrictive diets, but some general nutritional information would be helpful. Especially considering the conflicting and unreliable information available on the internet, it would be nice to go to the doctor and ask "what do you think about removing dairy products?" and get a helpful, considered answer.

Personally I think if we are lucky enough to have lived through the treatment we have a duty to try to feed our bodies as well as we can. I think I may well owe my life to having changed my diet from the meat and two veg, cakes , biscuits, pies, constipating diet, to a vegetarian diet which I have followed for over 34 cancer free years. It has kept me very happy and healthy anyway, and I have raised two beautiful ,healthy, strong, vegetarian from birth,teenagers.
Seeing the diets that a lot of nurses and doctors eat themselves, they are just going to give you their theory on diet juggled around what they eat themselves (cup-a-soup is very popular) -even dieticians are going to give you their pet theory. I think you have to work out a good diet that will work for you for yourself- after all it means more to you than anyone.
Great things are possible!
carola

The biggest problem is that the doctors have no idea about nutrition. Very early on in their training they may do "a couple of days" on nutrition. By the time they are surgeons or oncologist they have forgotten the little they did learn. When we went to see my husband's urologist 2 weeks ago I overheard this converation between the Great man and one of his registrars.
Registrar: do you think this man realizes he is terminal, only he's just asked me this question.......?
Urologist: Oh yes yes I'm sure he knows, what are you worrying about?
Registrar: Well he's lost some weight and he mentioned different foods.....Shouldn't we be giving him some dietry advice to help him keep the weight on
Urologist: No NO that's not our job.... we're not nutritionists, he can pick up a leaflet somewhere

The problem in this country is that medicine isn't holistic. It's like someone said earlier, it's re-active not pro-active. They deal with each individual symptom, not the body as a whole working organism. Which is why sometimes you can end up with a list of drugs as long as your arm, all conflicting with each other, and its only when you ask the pharmacy to check, that you find that out.
I'm very grateful for the NHS, but it needs a lot of improvements. The government & Jamie Oliver are trying to educate people! We should all know by now to eat our 5 a day. (or is it 7 now)

I have been a healthy eating vegetarian for over 20 years, and I still got cancer !!!!!

I am still a believer in the old saying 'a little of what you fancy', the emphasis being on the 'little'! 

But I do think that the widest variety of foods should be tried, the thinking now seems to be that those 5 a day should be of as varied a colour as possible, but of course, being as politically correct as possible, we should try to obtain as much local food as we can. I actually have gone much more organic in our diets in the 5 plus years since daughter was diagnosed, reasoning that we then have less pesticides, etc in our bodies. 

As for exercise, well I guess its 'get enough' but if you are in the middle of treatment, then listen to your body and only do what you are comfortable with.